Russia’s SU-32/34 Long-Range Strike Fighters

SU-34: takeoff!(click to view larger) Sukhoi’s SU-27 Flanker fighter has become one of Russia’s great export successes. It’s also a design success. Its basic airframe applied lessons from all of America’s “teen series fighters,” producing a 4+ generation aircraft that remains the yardstick by which other fighters are measured. What’s even more impressive is that the base design has been so flexible, allowing further refinements and modifications that include SU-30 and SU-35 upgrades, versions that add canard foreplanes (SU-30MKA/I/M), and even carrier-launched capability (SU-33). Then there’s the SU-32/34 “Fullback.” It was envisaged as a Flanker family successor to the F-111 analogue SU-24 “Fencer,” which was very highly regarded in Chechnya as a battlefield support aircraft. Its closest western comparison is the F-15E Strike Eagle, but the Russian design has evolved since its initial drafts in 1986. Russia’s SU-34 Program SU-32/34, firing(click to view full) The collapse of Russia’s arms industry in the 1990s really hurt the SU-34’s development, but it has recovered. A development journey that began with the aircraft’s maiden flight in 1990, as the T10V/SU-27IB, ended in with 2010 deliveries and fielding under a 5-year production contract, followed by a 2012 full rate production order. RIA Novosti put […]